Around town: January 8, 2014

As­sist­ant Man­aging Dir­ect­or San­ya L. Brown will re­view what oc­curred in Frank­ford in 2013 and what could have been im­proved at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 13, in the com­munity room of the Frank­ford branch of the Free Lib­rary of Phil­adelphia, 4634 Frank­ford Ave.

Brown also will dis­cuss what’s on Phil­lyR­ising’s agenda for 2014, events res­id­ents would like to see and changes they would like to see in Frank­ford.

As the snow was still fall­ing at 4:19 a.m. Fri­day, Phil­adelphia fire­fight­ers were bat­tling a fire in a two-story home on the 400 block of Ker­p­er St. in Lawndale.

The fire had been re­por­ted just five minutes earli­er, said Capt. Clif­ford Gil­li­am. When fire­fight­ers ar­rived, they found heavy flames in the house, he said.

The fire was un­der con­trol by 5:03 a.m., he said, and three per­sons were taken to hos­pit­als for eval­u­ation.

Gil­li­am said two adult wo­men and two chil­dren lived in the home.

The cause of the blaze and where it began are un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion, the cap­tain said.

The Red Cross was on the Ker­p­er Street scene and is provid­ing shel­ter to the fam­ily at the Red Cross House at 40th and Pow­elton as well as fin­an­cial as­sist­ance, said spokes­man Dave Schrader.

No fire­fight­ers were in­jured. ••

Vo­lun­teers help­ing with tax re­turns

Vo­lun­teers from RS­VP Phil­adelphia are of­fer­ing to help people in the area to pre­pare simple tax re­turns and oth­er doc­u­ments free of charge at the Klein JCC, 10100 Jam­is­on Ave., be­gin­ning on Feb. 1.

Those in­ter­ested in re­ceiv­ing help are re­quired to have in­comes of $60,000 or be­low, have all their doc­u­ment­a­tion in­clud­ing their W-2’s and oth­er in­vest­ment in­come and tax forms and must make a re­ser­va­tion in ad­vance be­fore they come to the Klein JCC for help.

Re­ser­va­tions can be made by call­ing 267-345-7787. ••

New re­cre­ation­al trail to be built

State Sen. Mike Stack has an­nounced that a new re­cre­ation­al trail will be con­struc­ted in North­east Phil­adelphia with new state in­vest­ment.

The fi­nal leg of the Bax­ter Trail por­tion of the North Delaware River­front Gre­en­way will be com­pleted with the re­cent ap­prov­al of a $250,000 state grant. Delaware River City Corp. will use the money to fin­ish the two-mile seg­ment of the trail, which is in Holmes­burg and bor­ders Tor­res­dale.

“We are mak­ing Phil­adelphia green again with the work we have done and con­tin­ue to do to im­prove and con­nect the trails that wind through the city,” Stack said. “This will be a great qual­ity-of-life im­prove­ment to the re­gion, as have all of trail im­prove­ment pro­jects that are either un­der­way or have re­cently been com­pleted.”

Delaware River City plans to build a 1,200-foot-long by 20-foot-high wall along the trail to pro­tect the people who use Bax­ter Trail near the Phil­adelphia Po­lice Academy Shoot­ing Range. Once com­pleted, the Bax­ter Trail will in­crease ac­cess to the Delaware River and will even­tu­ally be a trunk line of the 3,000-mile East Coast Gre­en­way, which will stretch from Maine to Flor­ida. ••

Might be hard to find a fa­vor­ite here

Vote for your fa­vor­ite baby bug this Sat­urday at 1 p.m. at the In­sect­ari­um, at 8046 Frank­ford Ave. This spe­cial event is free with gen­er­al ad­mis­sion to the mu­seum. ••

Mary Anne Ben­ner honored by GN­PCC with fel­low­ship award

Mary Anne Ben­ner, who re­cently joined 3rd Fed Bank as a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment of­ficer, was awar­ded the 2013 Fel­low­ship Award from the Great­er North­east Phil­adelphia Cham­ber of Com­merce for her lead­er­ship, vis­ion and sup­port with­in the com­munity and com­mit­ment to the cham­ber.

Ben­ner has been pre­vi­ously re­cog­nized as a lead­er in the com­munity hav­ing re­ceived the North­east Phil­adelphia Com­munity Col­lege Lead­er­ship Award and Phil­adelphia YMCA Lead­er­ship Award, to name a few.

Ben­ner is also a mem­ber of the GN­PCC Found­a­tion board of dir­ect­ors, a com­munity am­bas­sad­or for Bur­l­ing­ton County Cham­ber of Com­merce, and par­ti­cip­ates on the Ad­vis­ory Boards of the North­east Fam­ily YMCA, Im­macu­late Mary Re­tire­ment Home and Arch­bish­op Ry­an High School as co-chair.

She has more than 40 years of ex­per­i­ence in re­tail bank­ing and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Serving as 3rd Fed Bank’s busi­ness de­vel­op­ment of­ficer in the Bur­l­ing­ton County mar­ket, Ben­ner is an ex­pert in de­vel­op­ing and build­ing busi­ness re­la­tion­ships.

Her of­fice is loc­ated in the 3rd Fed Bank Delran branch at 3104 Bridge­boro Road in Delran, N.J. ••

Amici Op­era Com­pany’s up­com­ing Janu­ary per­form­ances

The Amici Op­era Com­pany has sev­er­al plays and din­ner con­certs com­ing up this Janu­ary.

Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) will be per­formed on Sunday, Jan. 12, at 2:30 p.m., at Dock Woods Com­munity, 275 Dock Drive in Lans­dale. It will also be per­formed on Wed­nes­day, Jan. 15, at 6:15 p.m., at Franco’s High Note, at 1549 S. 13th St. Then, on Sat­urday, Jan. 18 at 3 p.m. the play will be staged at Broad Street Min­istry, at 315 S. Broad St.

Tick­ets for these two din­ner con­certs are $39.95. Tip and tax are not in­cluded.

Puccini’s Man­on Les­caut is set for Sunday, Jan. 19, at 3 p.m., at Stage 1, at 101 Plush­mill Road in Walling­ford. Next, it will be per­formed on Sunday, Jan. 26, at 3 p.m. at Broad Street Min­istry, 315 S. Broad St. $25 per tick­et.

For in­form­a­tion call 215-224-0257. ••

Robert M. Gates will give talk at Na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter

Former U.S. Sec­ret­ary of De­fense and 2011 Liberty Medal re­cip­i­ent Robert M. Gates re­turns to the Na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter to give a present­a­tion and un­veil his new book, Duty: Mem­oirs of a Sec­ret­ary at War on Fri­day, Jan. 17, 2014 at 6:30 p.m.

The book gives his ac­count of serving as sec­ret­ary of de­fense un­der both Pres­id­ent George W. Bush and Pres­id­ent Barack Obama.

Duty: Mem­oirs of a Sec­ret­ary at War re­leases just three days pri­or to Gates’ Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter en­gage­ment.

Ad­mis­sion starts at $30 and is free for 1787 So­ci­ety mem­bers. A copy of Duty: Mem­oirs of a Sec­ret­ary at War is in­cluded in the cost of ad­mis­sion.

Writ­ten by Jon Robin Baitz and dir­ec­ted by Kate Galv­in, the play runs from Jan. 14 through March 2.

Oth­er Desert Cit­ies is the story of a once prom­ising nov­el­ist, who re­turns home after a six year ab­sence to cel­eb­rate Christ­mas with her par­ents, former lead­ing Re­pub­lic­ans, and her ec­cent­ric lib­er­al aunt. When the nov­el­ist an­nounces she is about to pub­lish a mem­oir on the fam­ily’s his­tory, the re­union is thrown in­to tur­moil.

For tick­ets and in­form­a­tion, call 215-574-3550 or 800-982-2787. Tick­ets are also avail­able on­line by vis­it­ing www.wal­nut­streettheatre.org or Tick­et­mas­ter. ••